'Baffled' peace activist gets $11,700 bill

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American peace activist Scott Parkin arrived back in the US
today under guard after Australian authorities detained him in a
Melbourne jail for five days for being a "national security
risk".

The 36-year-old Texan history teacher says he was made to feel
like a terrorist and a criminal and remains baffled as to why six
police officers "snatched him off the street" as he left a
Melbourne cafe last Saturday.

Parkin said he was interrogated and spent the next five days in
solitary confinement in a Melbourne jail.

He was escorted by two Victorian correctional officers on a
Qantas passenger plane which left Melbourne yesterday, arriving in
Los Angeles this morning.

"I'm baffled," Parkin, surrounded by Australian TV cameras and
media, said soon after his arrival at Los Angeles international
airport.

"I'm just completely baffled by all of this."

Parkin was in Australia as part of a six-month holiday in
Australia, New Zealand and Asia. He arrived on June 1.

An activist for 15 years, he said he gave talks while in
Australia about the war in Iraq and helped organise one protest
against US energy company Halliburton.

"In the talks I gave I wasn't even openly critical of
Australia," Parkin said.

"I was being openly critical of the US occupation (of Iraq) and
I was being openly critical of Halliburton."

It was just after finishing breakfast at a cafe in the Melbourne
suburb of Brunswick last Saturday when a shocked Parkin saw six
police officers.

"I had just finished breakfast when I had just walked out,"
Parkin said.

"I talked to them for a minute and said 'Hey, I'm a peaceful
person. I'm passive. I'm not going to give you any trouble'.

"They said 'OK', so we went to a local police station where an
immigration officer interrogated me."

Parkin said authorities never made it clear why he had been
arrested.

"They were very vague," he said.

"They said I violated sections of the migration act and they
said I was a direct or indirect risk to their national
security."

Parkin was housed alone in a jail cell that contained two
concrete slabs to sleep on, a TV set and a sink.

"They gave me three couch cushions and three really crummy
blankets and fed me three times a day," he said.

Parkin was also handed a bill for almost $11,700.

It included $4,235.03 for his airfare back to LA and $6,675.39
for the return airfares of his two corrective services escorts as
well as their accommodation in Los Angeles.

The five-day stay at the Melbourne Assessment Prison will cost
him another $777.

"They said if I ever decided to return to Australia I'd have to
pay them back," Parkin said.

The activist was also banned from entering Australia for three
years and the Australian visa in his passport was stamped with:
"NOT FOR FURTHER TRAVEL".

He plans to fight his removal from Australia and is desperate to
find out why authorities were concerned about him.

"I'd love to know the assessment in which the Australian
Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) made of me to lock me up
for five days in solitary confinement and then remove me from the
country essentially forcibly," Parkin said.

Parkin said he was not "deported" from Australia, but the
correct legal term was he was "removed".

While he was not happy with the treatment he received in
Australia, he said his passage through US immigration and customs
at LA airport today was a breeze.

"The US Customs were extremely friendly," he said.

Parkin plans to be vocal in the US about his detainment in
Australia and removal.

Asked about how he now felt about the Australian government he
replied: "I'm not going to go into that too much, but I don't have
very high regard though".

Parkin warned the incident raised great concerns about freedom
of speech in Australia and the US.

"I think we are seeing a crisis in freedom of speech and freedom
of expression in Australia, the United States and lots of places
and people need to be aware," he said.